The All About Comics Thread 5: Comic Books Ate My Paycheck

Victor Von Doom said:
I kid you not, when I was a little kid I loved burgers and wanted to be like Jughead.
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That. Is. Awesome.

You're just lucky you didn't want to grow up to be like Wimpy.

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Victor Von Doom said:
I also wanted to be the black sound-effects guy from Police Academy when I grew up.
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Please! You and every other kid who grew up in the eighties and early nineties.
 
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Ice said:
Michael Winslow.
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Oh I know who he is.....but everyone else knows him as That Black Guy From Police Academy.

Zombipanda said:
That. Is. Awesome.
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I thought it was.

It was either Jughead or Spider-Man. And since I couldn't climb walls, I was only left with one option.

Zombipanda said:
Please! You and every other kid who grew up in the eighties and early nineties.
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But how many of those kids could actually make really good sound effects and do impersonations?
 
Holy ****. Who read Brave and the Bold #33?
 
Is anyone else reading "Air"? It's really good, and unlike almost everything published by Vertigo right now (sans The Unwritten, maybe), it actually fits the line.
 
Zombipanda said:
How do you mean?
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It's wild, imaginative, mind-bending, surreal and high concept, which Vertigo has a reputation for, but is not evidencing in most of their line right now. Not to say that books like Unknown Soldier, Northlanders and Scalped are bad (though, I'm not overly fond of Scalped...), but they don't really fit the bill of what a Vertigo book should be. Or, at least, my fairly arbitrary notion of what a Vertigo book should be. Joe the Barbarian, The Unwritten and arguably Fables are exceptions.

But, I'm not reading every single book that they publish, so I'm probably missing out on something.
 
I'm really liking American Vampire. A western featuring Sawyer from Lost as a vampire? Count me in!
 
Gideon Stargrave said:
It's wild, imaginative, mind-bending, surreal and high concept, which Vertigo has a reputation for, but is not evidencing in most of their line right now. Not to say that books like Unknown Soldier, Northlanders and Scalped are bad (though, I'm not overly fond of Scalped...), but they don't really fit the bill of what a Vertigo book should be. Or, at least, my fairly arbitrary notion of what a Vertigo book should be. Joe the Barbarian, The Unwritten and arguably Fables are exceptions.

But, I'm not reading every single book that they publish, so I'm probably missing out on something.
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Hm. That's an interesting perspective. I'd guess there's only so much mind-bending material being published at any given time though, and Vertigo has gotten pretty successful. I wonder. Would you consider books like Preacher, Transmetropolitan, and 100 Bullets to have been Vertigo products? Or for that matter, American Virgin and Army@Love?

I suppose you have a point? With books like Ex Machina being published under the Wildstorm banner, it might make more sense for those books to shift to Wildstorm. But personally, I have no problem with it. The first Vertigo books I read were Transmet and Preacher which I don't think fit into that criteria. Then I feel Vertigo has expanded from its early roots into really just something of a prestige publisher imprint, and I feel like DMZ (can't forget DMZ. LOVE DMZ), Northlanders, Unknown Soldier and all that deserve a spot simple from being mature content and exceedingly high quality.

;) Maybe Vertigo should split up into sub-imprints like Wildstorm has.

Let me just add though, that Sweet Tooth is possibly the vertigoiest book Vertigo has ever produced.
 
Iceshadow said:
Why? Was it good or terrible?
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It was great. JMS's best issue so far. Don't let it get spoiled.

Gideon Stargrave said:
Is anyone else reading "Air"? It's really good, and unlike almost everything published by Vertigo right now (sans The Unwritten, maybe), it actually fits the line.
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I enjoyed Cairo and really want to read Air. I can't get into Unwritten but I have this problem with most Mike Carey comics. I like the ideas but I don't care about the characters. My favourite Vertigo titles at the moment are Sweet Tooth, Scalped, Joe the Barbarian and Fables.
 
Zombipanda said:
Hm. That's an interesting perspective. I'd guess there's only so much mind-bending material being published at any given time though, and Vertigo has gotten pretty successful. I wonder. Would you consider books like Preacher, Transmetropolitan, and 100 Bullets to have been Vertigo products? Or for that matter, American Virgin and Army@Love?

I suppose you have a point? With books like Ex Machina being published under the Wildstorm banner, it might make more sense for those books to shift to Wildstorm. But personally, I have no problem with it. The first Vertigo books I read were Transmet and Preacher which I don't think fit into that criteria. Then I feel Vertigo has expanded from its early roots into really just something of a prestige publisher imprint, and I feel like DMZ (can't forget DMZ. LOVE DMZ), Northlanders, Unknown Soldier and all that deserve a spot simple from being mature content and exceedingly high quality.

;) Maybe Vertigo should split up into sub-imprints like Wildstorm has.

Let me just add though, that Sweet Tooth is possibly the vertigoiest book Vertigo has ever produced.
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Yeah, that's where my overly simplistic taxonomic system begins to break down; with books like Transmetropolitan, Preacher and Y: The Last Man, which just sort of skirt the line. That said, they're all high concept books with fantastic, speculative and science fiction motifs. The difference is, in most of the aforementioned books, the "vertigo" elements are more peripheral. For example, "The City" in Transmetropolitan is a very detailed and effective framing mechanism, but the series is mostly about Warren Ellis' author avatar delivering thinly disguised misanthropic sociopolitical commentary. You can see a the structure of Preacher as being contingent with this sort of logic; it's a story defined by character interaction more than it is a religious satire. Or an antireligious didactic. Or whatever Garth Ennis was going for. Superimpose "Sweeping Gender study" over "Garth Ennis still being angry about having to attend Catholic school" as the thematic backdrop, and you have Y: The Last Man.

The Unwritten and Air, however, are more in the vein of Sandman. That is to say, they are more defined by their unrestrained narratives than their characters. Of course, this is also what PX2 says he doesn't like about The Unwritten, so it's obviously not for everyone.
 
Gideon Stargrave said:
Yeah, that's where my overly simplistic taxonomic system begins to break down; with books like Transmetropolitan, Preacher and Y: The Last Man, which just sort of skirt the line. That said, they're all high concept books with fantastic, speculative and science fiction motifs. The difference is, in most of the aforementioned books, the "vertigo" elements are more peripheral. For example, "The City" in Transmetropolitan is a very detailed and effective framing mechanism, but the series is mostly about Warren Ellis' author avatar delivering thinly disguised misanthropic sociopolitical commentary. You can see a the structure of Preacher as being contingent with this sort of logic; it's a story defined by character interaction more than it is a religious satire. Or an antireligious didactic. Or whatever Garth Ennis was going for. Superimpose "Sweeping Gender study" over "Garth Ennis still being angry about having to attend Catholic school" as the thematic backdrop, and you have Y: The Last Man.

The Unwritten and Air, however, are more in the vein of Sandman. That is to say, they are more defined by their unrestrained narratives than their characters. Of course, this is also what PX2 says he doesn't like about The Unwritten, so it's obviously not for everyone.
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Hm. So what you're saying is, Vertigo books should be more about theme than character? I don't know. If we were talking about the first batch of books to be pushed to the Vertigo line (Sandman, Animal Man, Swamp Thing) then that might be the case, but using that logic, half of Vertigo hasn't really been "Vertigo books" for a couple of decades now. I'd say as early as Hellblazer, we were seeing books that were primarily character driven being published by the imprint.
 
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